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Coffee and tea
All Containers›Shop by use case›Coffee and tea›Tools and directories›The roast log, and the fields that matterShop all coffee and tea →
Tools and directories

The roast log, and the fields that matter

By Dwight Davis, Founder

Updated

On this page8
Three entries carry this craft: the profile, the lot and the rest time. Everything else supports them.

The fields

  • Batch code, date and time of roast.
  • Green: supplier, lot, origin, and how long you have had it.
  • Batch weight in and weight out, which gives the roast loss.
  • The profile actually run, not the settings.
  • Ambient conditions and how many batches preceded this one.
  • Rest time: the gap between roasting and packing.
  • Packaging used, and the format.
  • A retained sample reference, and the date it was tasted.

Why those three

The profile answers every consistency question. The green lot links your product to its origin documentation and explains changes that were not yours. The rest time answers every inflated-bag and flat-tasting question. A bad week turns on one of the three.

Weight in and weight out is free information

It gives you roast loss per profile, which is the number the pricing page depends on, and a sudden change in it is an early signal that something about the green or the roaster has moved.

Log what preceded the batch

A machine that has already run five batches is hotter than a cold one, and the fifth roast of the day is not the first roast of the day. That single column explains a surprising share of otherwise mysterious variation.

Write it during, not after

A log completed at the end of the day records what you intended. It has to live at the roaster and be quick enough to fill in between batches, which in practice means a clipboard rather than a computer in another room.

Keep the retained samples with it

Small sealed samples, labeled with the batch code, stored somewhere consistent. They are the only way to taste the past, and tasting the past is the only way to see drift.

Code the package, not the case

A batch code on an outer carton is gone the moment a cafe unpacks it, and a complaint arrives as one bag on a counter. The code has to be on the thing the customer is holding, which for bulk means writing it on the container when it is filled.

References

21 CFR 101, Food Labeling, which carries the general requirements that apply here in the absence of a standard of identity: the statement of identity, net quantity, ingredient list and the name and place of business of the responsible party. law.cornell.edu
Written from federal regulation and from the published physics and chemistry of staling, not from a laboratory. There is no standard of identity for coffee or tea, so most of what governs a product here is the general requirement that labels be truthful and claims be substantiated. Anything here is a starting point for a conversation with your state department of agriculture, not a determination that you comply.